Reel: A Forbidden Hollywood Romance

It’s hard not to spend the whole night with Neevah; to stay and have her again; try to slake this quenchless thirst. Not only for sex, but for her closeness and the intimacy when my body relinquishes hers and we talk, our heads on one pillow. Our fingers linked on my chest. Laughing and touching in the dark where we don’t hide anything from each other. Even in this, the most hectic stretch of our shooting schedule, I want that. Bad. Ignoring her answering desire and the hands reluctant to let me go, I leave her at the door. I need to make a call.

Camille.

I can’t let what she did go unaddressed. I haven’t bothered to deal directly with her animosity before, and if she hadn’t involved Neevah, I probably wouldn’t bother now.

But she did.

My fingers flex and grip the steering wheel in the struggle to control my anger, which has crouched like a tiger ever since Evan dropped his bombshell news. I strategized with him. I made sure Neevah was okay. I even checked in with Kenneth and Jill to confirm we’re ready for tomorrow. With all of those things handled, now I can deal with Camille.

This was low.

Even for her, the woman who got me fired, not based on my inability, but out of spite and, yes, hurt. I know that. I could have pretended, let things ride until the movie wrapped, but that wouldn’t have been fair to either of us.

Headed home, I pull onto the interstate and select her contact. After half a ring, she answers like she was expecting my call.

“Canon.” Her voice fills the car, but she doesn’t say anything else. She’s almost as good as I am at hiding her feelings. It makes me appreciate Neevah’s openness and generosity even more.

“We need to talk,” I say.

“You could come over.” Her husky voice suggests wicked things. “I still keep Macallan . . . just in case.”

She thinks because she knows what I like to drink she knows me, like that’s intimacy. She has no idea how to burrow into my thoughts, into my system so deeply I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Neevah did that. What Camille and I had? It’s a shadow of the real thing.

“What you did today was uncalled for,” I say without acknowledging her offer. “Bitchy, even for you.”

“I merely expressed my desire to work with you again and my disappointment at not even being given a chance over some novice. Did you not want people to know you’re fucking yet another actress from one of your movies?”

“I don’t have time for games or to rehash the past. I won’t mislead you that there’s a future for us.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”

“You obviously wanted my attention.” I shrug, even though she can’t see it. “You got it. Now what?”

“I actually think we could put all this behind us and try again,” she says. “It was good. I know you remember.” Her words are a sultry promise, but my dick doesn’t even twitch.

“Now who’s flattering herself?” I scoff.

“You’re saying it wasn’t?”

“I’m saying it wasn’t enough.”

“Oh, and your little piece of ass is?”

My jaw clenches and I force my breaths to flow in even and slow, refusing to reveal my tumultuous emotions. “I called to ask for a truce,” I say. “To ask nicely.”

“And if I don’t?”

“It will be better if we both agree to let this go. To put this behind us. I’ll stay out of your way.” I pause, pouring ice over the small silence. “And you’ll stay the hell away from Neevah Saint.”

“Oh, now we get down to it,” she says, her words like the slash of a knife. “You know what I can’t wait for? I can’t wait for this movie to tank and everyone to know, including your studio and Evan, that you could have had me and you passed. That you could have had a star guarantee this movie succeeded, and you chose some unknown basic bitch with a tight pussy.”

“Tank? You mean the way Primal tanked without me?”

My retort dulls her blade and she goes quiet.

“Leave her alone, Camille.”

“How lucky she is to have a champion, someone who gave her a shot when literally no one in their right mind would.”

“Neevah is more talented on an off day than you are on your best,” I say, my voice not raising. “Is that what you want me to tell you? She’s the best thing about this movie, and there are a million great things about Dessi Blue. It’s the role of a lifetime, and I understand why you resent not getting a shot at it, but it wasn’t a fit for you.”

“No. If you had let me—”

“I tell her things that I tell no one else,” I continue softly, injecting the words with truth so she can hear that I’m not lying. “I want to be with her all the time. It has been torture pretending I don’t want her and hiding that we’re together. I’m proud of her, and because of what you did today, now everyone knows.”

“Son of a bitch,” she hisses, but the hurt slips through. I hear it. What she did was low, but what I just said, though honest, was low in its own way, because when it comes down to it, I know why Camille got me fired. I know why she lashed out publicly. I know why she threw her tantrum today.

Hurt people holler, Mama used to say.

When something hurts, you scream.

“Look,” I say, switching lanes on the interstate to exit as carefully as I’m changing the tone of this conversation. “Things ended badly between us, and we never really talked about it.”

“Oh, you talked about it. You eavesdropped on one phone call and decided I’m a bitch and you couldn’t be with me.” She pauses, draws a shaky breath. “That wasn’t fair, Canon.”

I heard what I heard and I know what I know. Anyone who would do what I overheard Camille doing, saying, is not for me, but that is not the point to make right now.

“I’m sorry I hurt you.”

I could have said it—sincerely said it—when we broke up, but maybe I didn’t understand the power of acknowledging someone else’s pain. Not that I would take her back, do it differently, or choose her over Neevah if given the chance, because hell naw. But Camille was emotionally involved, and I knew the break would hurt. Still, I never had this conversation with her. If I had, maybe we could have avoided all the subsequent shit that soured things so badly, so publicly between us.

“You did hurt me,” she says, her voice less sure, less hard. “I thought we . . .”

I know what she thought.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her again.

There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to apologize at all. Of course, there is. She hurt me, too. Tried to publicly embarrass me. Tried to damage my reputation. She was in the wrong. At this point, though, I’m more concerned about making things right than I am about being right.

“Are you . . .” She inhales sharply like someone does before they take an icy plunge. “Are you serious? About her, I mean?”

“Yes.” Lying won’t help. “I care about her a lot.”

“So that shit you said, about telling her things you don’t tell anyone else, you weren’t saying it just to get at me? You’ve opened up to her?”

“I have. I do.”

“I always wondered what that would look like,” she says, her voice softening around the edges some, almost wistful. “Canon Holt, open.”

“Do you remember what it was like when you first started, Mille? Before things got this big and before you felt like you were living in a den of vipers. That feeling of just loving the work and being grateful for a shot?”

“Yeah, I remember. It’s been a long time, but I remember.”

“I don’t want to fight with you, and I don’t want her caught in the middle. She shouldn’t be. Your problem, your real problem, was with me, and I’m saying I’m sorry.”

“Because of her you’re saying you’re sorry.”

“No, because of you I’m saying I’m sorry. Yes, I want this to stop, but also, I hurt you and I’m sorry.”

“So I guess now I’m supposed to apologize, too?” We used to make each other laugh, and some of that humor shows in her words.

“I won’t hold my breath.” I chuckle. “But know that when I say it, I mean it.”

“Yeah, well . . .” She sighs, her voice soft if not humble. “I’m sorry, too.”

“Thank you,” I tell her as I arrive at my house and pull into the garage. I park and wait for her next move because I’m out of them.

“So a truce, huh?” she asks.

“I’d like that, yeah.”

“Alright, whatever,” she says, her voice going brisk. “Truce.”